Forgive me if this has been asked and answered already, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I'm a BM spec and primarily involved in PvE via raids. My guild downed Mag for the first time this past Sunday and are starting SSC and TK this week. I'm currently our top hunter (out of three, one MM and another BM) and always in the top 3 spots for damage and dps (usually at the very top). However, I'm always trying to tweak my build to get the most out of it. I know I need to respec again, and have done so as I've learned progressively more about raiding and various encounters.
My question is would it be better for the group, as well as myself, to train Improved Aspect of the Hawk or Improved Hunter's Mark? I'm not quite sure which would be more beneficial as a whole.
I can't think of any raid build where you have to choose between the two. IAotH is a fundamental DPS-increasing talent for all BM Hunters. IHM is usually a toss up with Effeciency. If no one in your raid has 5/5 IHM, you should take it over Effeciency, since it's an extra 110 AP for all your melee DPS and tanks.
Always have 5/5 IAotH. There is no reason to put points in Endurance Training unless you have to in order to met minimum ranks for later talents.
Thanks Cheeky. I have been planning on removing points from Endurance Training when I respec this time. Until a couple of months ago when I joined my new guild, I was strictly a solo player so relied on my pet a lot more as a tank than I do now, so I was used to having ET. I'll use those points to pick up IAotH and switch some other things around a little so I can get some Efficiency as well.
How easy one is to get over the other depends on the player. It might take several weeks to get the S3 helm, and the axe is the first arena point item for most hunters. A nether is pretty easy to acquire, and you can even get one before level 70. The rest of the mats are just a matter of gold.
In my spreadsheet the S3 Helm is only about a 3 dps increase, so they are very close in quality.
There's other benefits to being an Engineering Hunter, but it is true that there are a couple of better helms in the game, and no other professions provide the stats boost of Enchanting your rings.
When I was referring to the difficulty of obtaining the engineering hat compared to S3 I was figuring the person was sitting at 0 engineering at the present time.
Also worth noting is that in 2.4 there is going to be a Tier 2 version of the Engineering hat which bumps up the stats to very decent numbers. I'll be crafting mine and replacing S3 with it
26 hit rating (13)
51 crit rating (38)
124 attack power (96)
Last edited by erb : 02/12/08 at 1:19 PM.
Reason: more info
For a long while my raiding was limited to Kara, Gruul, and the first couple bosses in SSC. In an attempt to improve my DPS, I recently switched to a standard 41/20/0 BM build after running with 0/21/40 (which I was using for increased utility in heroics and Kara). I noticed immediate improvement in my DPS in 10 man raids.
Last night was my first run with a new raiding group, who are currently working on Kael'thas, last night we almost made it to phase 5, which was a first for the raid. Obviously my gear is lagging behind the rest of the raid a bit.
In looking at the WWS here, I am trying to see where I can make further improvements to my DPS.
I've been plugging in various items into Cheeky's spreadsheet, and I know there are several slots in my gear that could use an upgrade. I'm using a 1:1 Auto/steady rotation, manually substituting Arcane/Multi for SS when appropriate. It seems I am clipping a few Autoshots, because I'm not getting a pure 1:1 rotation according to WWS.
My main question is, is there something obvious I'm overlooking that would be a big boost to my DPS, or is it just a matter of cleaning up my rotation a little but otherwise waiting for better gear?
Last edited by Danrith : 02/12/08 at 1:46 PM.
Reason: Correcting ambiguous wording and typos
Danrith: Just go with steady/auto and don't worry about multis or arcanes. Try to get a Wolfslayer also if you're still in Karazhan and you should try to pick up at least 2% more hit rating.
Danrith: Just go with steady/auto and don't worry about multis or arcanes. Try to get a Wolfslayer also if you're still in Karazhan and you should try to pick up at least 2% more hit rating.
Thanks for the input. I've been trying for a while now to get a Wolfslayer, with no success yet.
As far as the rotation, I thought from my reading here that for BM spec something like Auto, Multi, Auto, Arcane, Auto, Steady, Auto, Steady, Auto, Arcane would be higher DPS than just straight Auto/Steady. Am I misunderstanding?
And thanks for the reminder about hit rating ... that would help explain why I was 3rd in damage on trash and dropped to 7-9th place on the boss attempts. I haven't made up for the hit rating I lost when I specced out of surefooted and into BM.
Forgive me if this has been asked and answered already, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I'm a BM spec and primarily involved in PvE via raids. My guild downed Mag for the first time this past Sunday and are starting SSC and TK this week. I'm currently our top hunter (out of three, one MM and another BM) and always in the top 3 spots for damage and dps (usually at the very top). However, I'm always trying to tweak my build to get the most out of it. I know I need to respec again, and have done so as I've learned progressively more about raiding and various encounters.
My question is would it be better for the group, as well as myself, to train Improved Aspect of the Hawk or Improved Hunter's Mark? I'm not quite sure which would be more beneficial as a whole.
Generally for you yourself the impAotH will provide more dps, while of course one of the hunters in the raid should have the impHM. As BM you shouldn´t dropt the impAotH but efficiency for it, at least that´s what I would do, the aspect is quite powerful. As this is just a generic answer consult Cheeky´s spreadsheet for exact results considering your gear.
Edit: Sorry for answering this question again, I overlooked the new page on this topic.
In looking at the WWS here, I am trying to see where I can make further improvements to my DPS.
Kael is a horrible fight to judge DPS from WWS. I have parsed our runs into the separate phases, and even that isn't too useful for personal DPS numbers.
Best attempt WWS has me at 793 in phase 1, 1325 in phase 2, 1292 in phase 3, and 1640 in phase 4 (where our raid fell apart - it was just our second time in phase 4).
Because of the complexity of the fight, overall DPS doesn't have much relavance. Am I the 793 DPS Hunter I showed in phase 1? No, not being able to use my pet for some of the targets, and DPSing on the move for Thaladred are punishing to a BM spec. In phase 2 I was the Bow tank, so I could blow cool downs and unload for all I was worth. Phases 3/4 you have the legendary item and the synergistic buffs everyone gets inflate numbers.
If you have Lurker, Karahress, Solarian and especially Morogrim logs we'll be able to tell you much more about what kind of performance you are putting out.
I looked and you need to work on replacing some of your gear...
Your cloak, your shoulders, your belt, your legs and the two trinkets...need to be replaced...The Legacy with the arena two hand axe.
2% more hit...so lets say out of 100 shots you are missing 2...or anywhere from 1000 to 2500 damage every 100 shots
Nyidi did 528,000 in try 5 while you did 387,000
Or Nyidi did over 30% more damage than you...I don't think packing on 2% more hit is going to = over 30% more damage...Better gear, better shot/kill command management, not dying, Flask/buff food...etc will help far more than adding + to hit
I looked and you need to work on replacing some of your gear...
....
2% more hit...so lets say out of 100 shots you are missing 2...or anywhere from 1000 to 2500 damage every 100 shots
Nyidi did 528,000 in try 5 while you did 387,000
Or Nyidi did over 30% more damage than you...I don't think packing on 2% more hit is going to = over 30% more damage...Better gear, better shot/kill command management, not dying, Flask/buff food...etc will help far more than adding + to hit
I am well aware of the need to replace some of my gear. As a matter of fact, I specifically said so in my post. If you look at my presence during the fight, I didn't die on any of the attempts until near the end, typically after a wipe was called due to loss of tanks/healers. I always run with a flask and +20 agility food.
My question was not whether I need better gear ... I do. My question was whether there are other things I could improve on in the meantime, while getting the better gear.
Originally Posted by Cheeky
Kael is a horrible fight to judge DPS from WWS. I have parsed our runs into the separate phases, and even that isn't too useful for personal DPS numbers.
Best attempt WWS has me at 793 in phase 1, 1325 in phase 2, 1292 in phase 3, and 1640 in phase 4 (where our raid fell apart - it was just our second time in phase 4).
Because of the complexity of the fight, overall DPS doesn't have much relavance. Am I the 793 DPS Hunter I showed in phase 1? No, not being able to use my pet for some of the targets, and DPSing on the move for Thaladred are punishing to a BM spec. In phase 2 I was the Bow tank, so I could blow cool downs and unload for all I was worth. Phases 3/4 you have the legendary item and the synergistic buffs everyone gets inflate numbers.
If you have Lurker, Karahress, Solarian and especially Morogrim logs we'll be able to tell you much more about what kind of performance you are putting out.
Thanks for the constructive feedback, Cheeky. I've found a Morogrim/Karathress log here. It's with a different raid group, so not exactly comparing apples to apples, but I was in essentially the same gear and using the same macros. (Ignore The Lurker log ... I had a horrible lag spike just before a spout and died about 1/3 through the fight.)
Generally for you yourself the impAotH will provide more dps, while of course one of the hunters in the raid should have the impHM. As BM you shouldn´t dropt the impAotH but efficiency for it, at least that´s what I would do, the aspect is quite powerful. As this is just a generic answer consult Cheeky´s spreadsheet for exact results considering your gear.
Edit: Sorry for answering this question again, I overlooked the new page on this topic.
Thanks. I went ahead and fixed my spec. Would have liked to pick up Efficiency but couldn't figure out where I could get the points from without losing them in other essential areas. I don't seem to have too much of a problem with mana on extended boss fights though, between using fel mana pots and slapping on AotV when I get down to about 1/4th, so not that big of a deal I guess. I'm not sure if the other hunters have Imp HM but we do 10-mans a lot where I'm the only hunter, so I went ahead and grabbed it.
Thanks for the constructive feedback, Cheeky. I've found a Morogrim/Karathress log here. It's with a different raid group, so not exactly comparing apples to apples, but I was in essentially the same gear and using the same macros. (Ignore The Lurker log ... I had a horrible lag spike just before a spout and died about 1/3 through the fight.)
Taking a look at the Morogrim kill only (don't have time to go through Karathress too):
1 - Gearing is showing up through effective Crit %, Miss %, and average shot damage. One thing that I can't tell is if you kept Hunter's Mark up 100% of the time. Anytime it falls off you loose over 400 AP instantly, and even if you recast you have the slow process of building it back up to 440. That will help with average damages.
2 - You only used 3 potions in 10 minutes, and still went into Aspect of Viper. You should be more aggressive on potion usage, and stay in Hawk as long as humanly possible (which should be 10 minutes with no problems using Fel Mana Potions.)
3 - Cool down usage looks good with Rapid Fire and Beast Within.
4 - You got no real effective group synergy. You buffed a Warlock a bit, which is good, but you didn't seem to get anything from your group. The uptime of Judgment of Wisdom was weak, with it only effecting about ~27% of your time spent DPSing. If your raid can keep that up more you should have the mana to go with a full priority rotation. (and with your Multi/Arcane doing significantly more damage per shot, that has a large effect on total DPS.)
5 - Shot rotation - 258 Auto Shots, 224 Specials, or 1:0.87. It's not horrible, but you can probably find a couple more in there. Even in Rapid Fire you should try and get a 1:1 rotation going, use Multi and Arcane at these times to minimize clipping as much as possible.
6 - Your pet did fine. You had great use of KC, especially considering your low crit rate. A ravager might be 4-5 DPS higher, but I really wouldn't worry about that. As your RAP and crit (for KC frequency) scale up, your pet will see addiitonal DPS. Pets also scale really well with raid buffs, so getting a Shaman, Feral, or even DPS Warrior in your group will help the pet too.
My recommendations:
1 - Get your hit up, without sacrificing other stats at worse than a 1:1 ratio.
2 - Work with your Guild leadership on synergy issues. Maybe they see you as just a 3% buff to other DPS, but if so you should be in a better group setup.
3 - Increase your other stats, but honestly only do this after focusing on +hit.
4 - Be patient. As you both gear up, and become more familiar with the encounters your DPS will rise.
One other thing I would recommend is thinking about raid composition. If you find your raid has 1 Hunter, or all BM/MM Hunters you might want to go Survival. You'll bring much more raid DPS to the table, especially considering your current gearing level. It also puts you in a better light for group buffs, as a Feral Druid or Resto Shaman's effects on you get magnified to the raid.
Imagine your shots hitting for 10 more damage on average...you would easily compensate for the misses...
People have tried to brainwash me into beliving hit is important...Good thing it didn't work...Or I'd be hit heavy and the rest of my stats poor...pack on agility...attack power/critical strike...Dont worry about hit unless lower than 80...
Have to draw a line somewhere...As far as I can tell 80 is good...after that packing on as much agility...attack power/critical strike is the way to go...
Imagine your shots hitting for 10 more damage on average...you would easily compensate for the misses...
People have tried to brainwash me into beliving hit is important...Good thing it didn't work...Or I'd be hit heavy and the rest of my stats poor...pack on agility...attack power/critical strike...Dont worry about hit unless lower than 80...
Have to draw a line somewhere...As far as I can tell 80 is good...after that packing on as much agility...attack power/critical strike is the way to go...
Where are you pulling those numbers from, a full raid? You do realize the hit cap is only stressed for L73 targets (i.e. bosses), right? No one really gives a shit if you can get 10 more DPS on the trash by running a less efficient gearset on the boss. If your raid needs 10 more DPS on the trash you've got bigger concerns.
The math is pretty clear. Hit is a much more cost effective way to increase DPS than Agility, crit, or AP. And it scales with everything. Up until you hit the cap. Welcome to the world of the 2-roll model.
Ok I didn't say anything about 10 dps...I said 10 damage per shot...
You are correct about the trash numbers...my mistake...
"Your cloak, your shoulders, your belt, your legs and the two trinkets...need to be replaced...The Legacy with the arena two hand axe."
Has nothing to do with cost...It has to be done...plain and simple...Or are you sugesting that I replace my less efficient epic gearset with blues that are loaded with plus to hit so as to make my gear more efficient?
And what is the hit cap?
You must get your +hit to (insert number here (142?))...Simple...or is there some other number?
Alright, now I have come to a bit of a crossroads at the moment as to what I should do.
Now, at the moment, I am Marksman Spec, and intend on staying that way until I get the Vengeful Glad bow, but once I do that, I'm at a loss for which spec to go. I have gear for each one, and from what I've Seen BM is an amazing spec, and I top the damage meters when I go that spec, but I absolutely HATE the play style and the concept of relying on an NPC do deal any real damage. But as marks, I rarely dish out enough damage to hit top 10 on the meters. Now Survival is my true passion. I love the spec, and really enjoy being it, but as it is most common knowledge, Survival is one of the worst specs for personal damage, but I haven't gone Survival in a long time, and I usually have about 800 agility or so... So I am torn. Should I go with my favorite spec and try to make that work on the meters, or should I go with the flow and go BM?
Does any resistance school increase the chance to resist fd?
For example ... has a mob with 100arcane resi an higher resistance (or any other school) value against me as a mob with zero arcane resistance?
And does feign death relate to any king of resistance school? So that i can reduce the resistence rate by stucking more arcane dmg for example? Well at the last point i am quiet sure i cant ... but yeah ...
Alright, now I have come to a bit of a crossroads at the moment as to what I should do.
Now, at the moment, I am Marksman Spec, and intend on staying that way until I get the Vengeful Glad bow, but once I do that, I'm at a loss for which spec to go. I have gear for each one, and from what I've Seen BM is an amazing spec, and I top the damage meters when I go that spec, but I absolutely HATE the play style and the concept of relying on an NPC do deal any real damage. But as marks, I rarely dish out enough damage to hit top 10 on the meters. Now Survival is my true passion. I love the spec, and really enjoy being it, but as it is most common knowledge, Survival is one of the worst specs for personal damage, but I haven't gone Survival in a long time, and I usually have about 800 agility or so... So I am torn. Should I go with my favorite spec and try to make that work on the meters, or should I go with the flow and go BM?
That is such a misconception of saying Surv is bad dps; given it is the worst dps of the 3 diffrent trees for PvE dps, but by far it is not a bad dps spec. BM has shown to be the highest dps spec, but going from top dps spot till not in top 10 when you spec MM is not the spec, but your playstyle, no offense intended, just saying you are use to play the BM rotation style and MM requires diffrent playstyle. Howitzer have shown before with proof that MM dps is not that far behind BM at all, and that is even with pet friendly fights, it just requires a diffrent playstyle and shot rotations, as for example MS is a must use aswell as arcane shot cause of inc AP and there is time to weave 2 specials between autos alot of the time.
Then to answer your question, WoW is a game, so play what you love imo. Argueably, Surv buffs the raid the most for raidwide dps increase (if you are the only survival hunter in the raid). With good gear and correct itemization you should give a raid wide buff of ~250 AP for all physical dps and aswell as 110 AP to all melee dps aswell from Imp HM, (not even speaking that you can be the scorpid sting mule for -5% hit on MT) now if you add the dps the raid gain from these buffs and add your dps to it, dont be surprise if you are very close on top then with the added benefit that you play the spec you love. Just make sure you understand the proper shot rotation for playing as Surv spec, go check the post about Survival raiding no these forums, all the info you need is there and you will realise that Surv dps is not that lacking at all in the end. You will never top dps meters on your own sure, or lets hope not or your guild is in trouble, but you give the raid 2 valuable buffs and most important of all, you are having fun.
Ok I didn't say anything about 10 dps...I said 10 damage per shot...
You are correct about the trash numbers...my mistake...
"Your cloak, your shoulders, your belt, your legs and the two trinkets...need to be replaced...The Legacy with the arena two hand axe."
Has nothing to do with cost...It has to be done...plain and simple...Or are you sugesting that I replace my less efficient epic gearset with blues that are loaded with plus to hit so as to make my gear more efficient?
And what is the hit cap?
You must get your +hit to (insert number here (142?))...Simple...or is there some other number?
I simplified 10 damage per shot to 10 DPS, since most raiding Hunters do about 1 shot a second.
It also seems like you are trying to respond to multiple posts as once. Using the Quote feature would help make this clear, and allow people to reference the exact post you are responding to.
The hit cap for L73 targets is +9%. How you get there (talents, racial, Faerie Fire, +hit on gear) is up to you. I wouldn't recommend lowering other stats for hit at less than 1:1 ratio in item budget. So if it will cost you 10 Crit and 20 AP for just 15 Hit don't do it. But if you have the choice between 8 Crit and 8 Hit (like, for example, a yellow gem) you are much better off with the hit until you reach the cap.
Feel free to use the DPS spreadsheet to help you evaluate these tradeoffs and choices.
I strongly advise doing what Cheeky says, his spreadsheet is awesome. You may even find that yes some blues with +hit on them give you more sustained DPS.
I am having a problem with my Macro. As you can see in the screenshot it is doing "Steady, Arcane, Auto, Auto" instead of "Steady, Arcane, Auto, Steady, Auto"
Translated...+8 hit or +4 agility +4 hit gems in yellow...or red slots are best...until you hit the cap...of 9%
That works as long as everyone is doing it...But I never did until my ability to get better and better gear slowed significantly...Like when you begin grinding SSC...Then I began stacking hit to the cap to maximize dps.
I am having a problem with my Macro. As you can see in the screenshot it is doing "Steady, Arcane, Auto, Auto" instead of "Steady, Arcane, Auto, Steady, Auto"
This is the Macro I am using:
Is this a known issue or is there something wrong with my macro?
You want to be using either a castsequence macro or one with /cast !autoshot not a combination of both. Either remove the /cast !autoshot or remove the /castsequence part of it replacing it with a /cast Steady Shot. You have 2 different macro styles combined.
02/12/08, 12:45 PM
